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Oh! You had to ask how I am, when I'm thinking about the past.
And that's mainly about buying a right-handed Strat and changing it to be more lefty.

I've been telling you that I never wanted to record and played in showbands, dance bands.
Here's some scans to show you some set lists, if you can recognize the songs from the names.
In the Trouble Clef photo, the bassist on the left is nineteen, and the drummer on the right is twenty-one.
That's me in the middle, thirty-two. These young guys asked me to start a rock band with them,
because they were both playing in different country bar-bands.
The drummer sang the Billy Idol songs, and backed me up for the rest.

The handwritten set list was done by the female lead singer of a rock show-band in Toronto.
The last I heard of her, she was fronting a big band jazz band for New Years Eve,
at the new casino in Niagara Falls, about fifteen years ago.
I betcha she wasn't wearing spandex and crouching down on her haunches,
being sweaty and holding the mike out from between her legs and waving it around.
Sometimes I had to hide behind my amplifier to get her to leave me alone so I could concentrate.
I just joined the band to fill in for a guitarist and never did sit down to learn the songs.
yeah... Toronto... the only time the drummer wore some clothes was onstage.
He had a custom set of the biggest drums Ludwig made... yeah...
you can imagine his backstage presence.

I hope you can read the poem, one of the nicest things someone ever gave to me,
after hearing our band jamming one afternoon.

The Tribune stuff is there to show you I was a music columnist and part-time reporter.

The Niagara Falls Review article is there just to pump up my name.
The smaller ad is for a different band years later, using the same name and stationary.
The rest of the band didn't want to be in the photo.
That was a nice gig. The bar was right on the Parkway along the Niagara Gorge,
and many of the customers would go outside and cross the street,
to stand by the railing to look into the gorge, more smoke than mist down there.

I might be going for a road trip today to buy one of the guitars being offered to me.

When you see the songs we did as Trouble Clef, it was supposed to be a new wave band.
You might wonder how we did the songs that had synthesizer sounds and different guitar sounds.
I custom ordered a Redmere Soloist from Scotland in 1977.
It had three pre-amps, Fender, Marshall and Vox, with multiple effects built in,
some calling it Jimi Hendrix in a box. I paid $2,700 plus tax and shipping.
I took apart the foot pedal it came with, and bought 18 double-pull, double throw switches,
custom ordered from the United States, that cost $15 each wholesale, a music store helping me.
I separated the pre-amps and effects so I could use my feet to change it any way I wanted,
with three channels, and used LEDs so I could pre-set other channels and see what they had.
I wasn't exactly tap-dancing while I was playing, but other guitarists called it that.
David Bowie used a Redmere Soloist for Let's Dance, what sounds like the synth being a guitar.
Redmere is a Scottish name for a swamp that ran red with the blood of English highwaymen.
The new invention was a silent switch that let you change anything without making a sound.
I could put my guitar down, turn it up and kick it, and play with the knobs to make mini-symphonies,
or wars between the robots, or a locomotive starting up and running you over.
Having all the pre-amps and effects built into one box, without all the stage wires and different power sources,
which could include wall sockets, transformers and batteries, made everything sound deeper and cleaner.
My new stereo Marshall pre-amp system is better, being interactive with effects and volume,
as phasing and panning, speeding up or slowing down, nicer than a Hammond Leslie.
Now I know what it feels like to be taken up in constant flight. And then I get to sing.

A man who said he heard of me came down to see me working in the basement making signs.
He said he was a keyboard player who sang opera when he was younger.
He sang a song, surprising me, and that really made my day.

alcaponedudu! I'm glad you share the feeling, that's all I ever want to do.
And your compliments are all I need to keep typing back at you.

Here's some photos of the guitar I bought in St. Catharines this afternoon,
and yes, there's a sweet feeling story to go with it.
On the way for lunch at a social services agency that has its own kitchen,
that lets me eat as a member, I got the meal of the day, a fish-burger with sweet potatoe fries.
I was a little late, timing myself for the bus, and they had a left-over fish patty on the grill,
so I got to double up. They had fresh salad left over from the day before, and I got some of that,
with my choice of salad dressing. I'm going to use a photo to illustrate me and food. Total cost, $2.
I got talking so much with young placement students I forgot to pay.

I stopped in at the store that wants to hire me as a strolling troubadour, where I made signs this week,
and he gave a bus pass with one trip left on it, saying someone gave it to him. That saved $5.

I made it to the bus, waiting just a few minutes, talking with a cute young college student.
She had a cake for her fathers' birthday, and said he played guitar too.
The seller lived right behind the lane-way entrance to the cinema parking lot at the Penn Center,
a stop on the bus route, so I only had to walk five minutes to get there. It's a beautiful sunny day.

He offered me the red Stratocaster for $90 with a black nylon gig bag, my first. I gave him $100.
He also had a green Ibanez full-scale for sale for $130.
He has a greenhouse business and brokers plants and trees for Canadian Tire stores in Toronto,
and this was his winter season, so we had a nice, long visit, and believe it or not, he talked more than me.
I gave him a nice guitar lesson, and blew his mind. When I started playing fast he leaned forward and shouted wow.
I showed him how you could use an open chord G formation as a barre chord,
to play chords that are G minor or major that can be Em or E major, adding a layer of effects driven sounds.
Those are called relative keys, in traditional music, but Jimi took them up into a new chordal relativity.
I say that, but Frederik Magle does that all at once with layers of keys and pedals at his feet.

That's my 1972 custom ordered Fender Stratocaster Tremolo Unit plate, showing this guitar is full-scale.
The black plastic tremolo arm came with it.
I went to Thorold Music, beside the Penn Centre, a three minute walk from the bus stop,
and they had a box of used tremolo arms, finding two that worked. I paid $9.95.
The other one was had a bigger angle and stuck up more, what I call a dive-bomber,
not the kind you have resting under your hand all the time, floating with it, for feedback control,
and what can be a constant being in tune and de-tuning that sounds better, floating your pitch.

The burnished aluminum piece is something I made to extend the right-handed horn.
I've been moving and dancing around with a lefty body for so long, I need the same balance.
It's not built in yet. That's a Fender Heavy Thick pick, what Jimi and Ritchie Blackmore used.
When you play with your fingers and have a pointed thumbnail for playing fast, single-note runs,
your thumbnail gets ground off when you're using round-wound nickle-plated steel strings,
and a heavy guage, tens for the first E, to have a more jazzy set-up and feel.
These picks heat up in your hand and stick to your skin, and are easy to palm or hold between fingers.
Just like Jimi and Ritchie said, the first two guitarists to use a Stratocaster and Marshall onstage,
I used to walk around with one in my hand all the time, getting that together.

I told you I wanted to make this a decorative guitar, doing some Haida symbols on it, so here' my newest toque.
I have a Haida style humpback whale symbol I made up, because they don't have one.
I'm thinking of having that swimming along the side of the pick-guard towards the end of the body,
with some smaller salmon rounding it out. You should hear me sing imitation humpback whale frequencies.
I want my next bassist to use a bow and get some sounds of the deep, saying humpback me up on bass.

I hadta round it out to six photos, so here's a tree in Niagara Falls with a lot of red.

I want you to realize, Eduard, if I remember your spelling, that your music and intense replies,
have helped to motivate me to get going in a new way.
And that's the only way I can get going, no matter what I do.

Oh yeah! I got an email from someone saying they had a lefty tremolo arm,
they want to drop of for me, maybe today. I said I'd pay $10,
even if he wants to give it to me for free. Anything lefty is rare.
I also got an email invitation to visit an open stage in St. Catharines.
Even I'm going to want to watch some video proof of that.
The first new song I want to get together is Crazy by Gnarls Barkley.
If you knew what was going on in my life in Welland, you'd say right on.

As for your question, yes, I do have some recordings that were given to me.
People around, other musicians and the guys I was jamming or playing with,
would have a machine on, playing with their equipment, and sometimes gave me a copy.
I have to admit, sometimes when I listen to some, I think wow, I really did that.
What I play on guitar is more about how I sound and who I'm playing with,
but it's my singing I see as getting better as I grew older.
I listened to vocal coaches when I was hanging out with lead singers,
and they all said if you're going to sing every night,
you should talk quietly during the day and don't shout.
I've been doing that ever since.
And if a good-looking girl has to lean in closer to hear what I've got to say,
yeah... it works for me that way.
It's easy to type about all of this, but I've got to adjust the neck,
sand the frets on the left-handed side, sand the finish off the back of the neck,
put on new strings, set the bridge pieces with an oscilloscope,
add a humbucker by the neck, change the other pickups to new DiMarzios,
making a new pickguard for that, and for one volume control with a three-way Switchcraft switch.
Being able to use the Humbucker for mellow, jazzy sounds, and Les Paul rock sounds,
with the single-coil Strat replicas for Strat sounds, has been my set-up since 1972.
Using a three-way Switchcraft switch, with the switch in the middle for all three pickups,
makes a softer sound, a little quieter, that's perfect for finger-picking acoustic style.
It also lets me change from the humbucker to the humbucker with the single coils,
to the single coils, so that you don't hear any snaps or pops when pickups aren't on.
That's a five-way Switch, what Fender thinks is hot. It's not.
And why have two tone controls? You only need one, and for me, that's what your amp is for.
I don't need anything getting in the way of my hand and fingers.
Tapping different parts of a Stratocaster when you're using feedback is part of playing one.

I better stop typing. It's time go upstairs for the Flea Market, open today, Saturday.
I'll see if I can get the sign out on the sidewalk before Larry gets here from Fort Erie.
I'm not an employee, but his girlfriend is undergoing chemo cancer therapy,
and her mother is in the hospital, dying, so he needs all the cheering up he can get.
Thinking about your invitation if I ever come to Brazil,
is almost as good as the long distance bike-hike I can't go for.

Let me tell you this, alcaponedudu, don't be shy.
Just like musicians who are starting out who say they don't sing,
I say if you're going to sing you should start right now.
Sooner or later, you're going to have to sing backup to get the gig.
Society has changed so much with technology all around,
what your fingers do on the keyboard is just as important as playing your instrument.
You should start typing about yourself and see what your fingers say,
and your life in Brazil is very interesting for those who have never been there.
Even National Geographic is now admitting it was a racist and sexually exploitive magazine,
how it portrayed your people, and other natives around the world.
You can help everyone understand. You know that's part of what I do.

I just want to sqeeze one more in before you reply, if you ever come back.
You should feel swamped here by the weight of all my font.
That could be me trying reverse psychology.

When I was on the road, playing six-nighters in different cities,
I decided to make it a challenge and go for free food.
All along, no matter what's happening, people are surprised I like to talk about food.
I could be the rock star, the lead singer, the lead guitarist, or a co-worker,
but when I spoke over the microphone I'd talk about what I like to eat,
saying maybe some audience members could turn me on to a nice local restaurant,
or invite me over for lunch or supper, to be the family I had to leave behind.
That worked for me. You'd be surprised who invited me over.
I also asked about canoes and paddling around, or playing tennis or pool,
and got invitations to do that.
As far as not looking for more alcohol or sex and drugs with everyone else,
being known for liking food and eating as family got me some very nice invitations.

The St. Catharines Standard is the biggest newspaper in the Niagara Peninsula.
They decided to have an annual picnic at the new water park in Prudhommes, by Lake Ontario.
It featured a huge water slide, and yes, no-one went to swim in Lake Ontario.
There isn't even any public beaches for that heavily polluted with chemical warnings water.

I was just invited as a guest, saying I didn't have to bring my guitar, and was a little fat already.
Being able to help cook the burgers meant I was passing them out and met a lot of new people,
and keep some going for me, getting them well-done and a little crispy.
That's one of my favorite Jimi t-shirts.

When I was invited to be a special guest at the Port Dalhousie music festival,
with streets lined with buskers and bands on every corner,
I was told that allowed me access to the organizers all-day buffet.
Some Port players weren't happy that someone from Welland got to be the special guest,
but when I got there with my famous guitar and a very nice portable amp,
and started jamming with everyone I met, I hardly had time to hit the buffet.

A St. Catharines Standard reporter, the first woman to cover the police beat, and very cute,
said she had free passes to see the Phantom of the Opera in Toronto,
and that's when it first opened and was a hot show at the rebuilt Pantages Theatre.
Do you think I turned down her invitation to go with her?
Did we end up kissing beside her car on top of the escarpment in Hamilton,
when I told her about my friend with the cherry farm with the best view?
I'll let you decide. I'll tell you this, I went for the black cherries first.
That view was looking over the entire city of Hamilton and Burlington,
with Lake Ontario past that with the lights of Toronto across the water.
When I lived in Toronto or was coming back, driving on that nasty highway,
I'd pull into Hamilton for the last 7/11 south of Toronto,
and take a Super Big Gulp and some munchies up the escarpment to take a break.
When I saw the farmer one year, and got talking, he invited me to help myself,as long as I didn't start filling up my trunk.
Sometimes I leave an envelope with money in his mailbox and comment on the cherries.
I went for a summer job picking cherries when I was in high school,
but I got fired before lunch because I was eating more than I turned in,
even if I was turning in more than most of the pickers.
Same with raspberries and strawberries.
I'd say 60% of my sign customers were restaurants, pizzerias and sub shops.
I'd be eating there, and I'd say I've got to eat and you need some signs.
That's all that took, and it's better to get behind the counter to make your own.

Now, how could all of that happened, if I was only there to sell a CD?

No, I'm not trying to take over alcaponedudus' thread, I'm not trying at all.
This won't last long, but here's a link for a guitar from Brazil who now lives in St. Catharines, Canada.
I see so many immigrants who come here with art or music who think they are going to make it,
but they're doing stuff everyone around here grew up with.
I answered this ad, asking if he played Brazilian music and encouraged him to do that,
but he said he was heavy metal all the way.
He's got on of those ads with a video you can watch and listen to.

It's colder and windier outside again. I was I was back in time at that bar-b-que.
I tested the link and saw a new feature here for the first time,
warning and asking about continuing with this link when it leads out of the domain.
The as-yet-untitled Frederik Magle is either too nice,
or is being forced to comply with new American internet security regulations.

Hello John. Sorry for taking so long to answer you. I was travelling and got a little too busy.

I'm glad you have a new guitar. That's always awesome. I sometimes dream of a instrument or something. Good instruments are very expensive here in Brazil.

Next week I'm going to record a demo of a new song I made. Maybe it'll take a couple sessions actually. But this recording is not going to be in a professional studio. That's more of a homemade thing. The song is about brazil's present politics and politicians (I told you about that in a previous post). Our current situation is so bad that it makes me sick. Really sick!

alcaponedudu! Hey! Don't apologize! If you have a life, that's your fault.

Getting this guitar has become more than awesome for me.
I've got a bass player and another very good guitarist wanting to start a band.
So far, after two days, no drummer. I thought a drummer would be easy.

I'm looking forward to hearing your new song.
I hope you mention the life-giving waters your nation is built upon.
I'd use a view looking into one of those ancient ritual sites,
and instead of the historic things natives threw down there,
you could show modern images to be sacrificial about.
Or you could be down there in a canoe pulling traditional values back up.

When you say instruments, what exactly would you want for yourself?

Here's how my lefty addition turned out.
When I played a right-handed Strat upside-down when I was nineteen,
I cut away the right-handed scallop for better upper fret access.
I also removed the right-handed strap-holder.
Saying my guitar was left-handed kept a lot of strangers from wanting to try it.
Now that I'm wiser, more mature, more gracious, more loving and giving, richer and better looking,
I did something for the first time, adding this extension so it straps on the same as my lefty,
and I left on the right-handed strap-holder so a righty can play it.
I'm also leaving the body the way it is.
It's like having a change in me staring me in the face.

alcaponedudu! Wow! The only grand pianos I see are on concert stages.
Everyone else has a big synthesizer that does it all.

I like the name "gigsters".
I was surprised when it went through online as never having been used before,
so I could register gigster, gigsters and be gigsters.ca.
I would have thought someone during the big band and jazz era would have thought that up.
For me, gigsters means a band of players who are there to do the gig and be professional all the way.
That's a dream band.
If I got a bunch of old guys together who used costumes to be old old men,
who played like crazy and jumped around, I'd call it "Geriatricks".
Geriatrics is the science of growing old, and being Geriatricks is playing with it.
I say young people are hot to trot, but old people have geriatricks.

I have to mention "The John Watt Experience".
No-one will ever see or hear that. Never. It cannot be recorded or video-taped.
Part of that is because I do my best work in the dark.

Off the Cuff, Riverend, Mister-E, Barn Stormer, even Bandudu, It All Depends,
and as seniors, having Depends is important for long shows.
Sent A Mental....

Up until the late seventies, there were two companies that made electric pianos in Canada.
They both used two strings for every note, and had to be tuned every time you moved them.
They looked like smaller scale uprights, and the keyboardist could look over them at the audience.
When synthesizers hit, you never saw them onstage again, becoming souvenirs in homes.
I saw a few arguments where musicians said the pianist had to help move the band equipment,
before they stopped to tune up.
Finger Ring, that's not a bad name for a guitar based band.

So far, two bassists, three drummers, one guitarist and one keyboardist,
all online, no-one getting together to jam and see what happens.

alcaponedudu! It's a little strange thinking you're in Brazil laughing at one of my lines.
There was more news about the military crack-down in your country,
with some people coming back from holidays saying it wasn't as nice.

I like Korg. In the 70's they had two octave keyboards that had two sounds,
sounding really good, and a Hammond B3 imitator that had three or four stops.
A lot of guys had a couple of those on top of their piano.
Korg also came out with "The Wave System", one of the first to do that.
I even got a free Korg t-shirt at a corporate event.

Rodman Hall, an art gallery in St. Catharines, had a 12' Steinway in one room.
I got to jam on that a few times in the afternoon when they weren't busy.
I don't know any songs, just jamming in Cm, but I can play all day.

Nothing happened, no jams, no visits, and the guitarist gave me some Kijiji advice.
I'm making a music studio so I can make a video of me playing guitar,
and the guitarist told me how to embed them, something I've never done.
It's also going to be a place where I can play standing up,
and jam along to CD's or the radio. I might even give lessons, if your guitarist shows up.
I'll set up my 100 watt powered mixer that has mike inputs and quarter-inch jacks,
in case there's going to be some jamming or rehearsing here.

I used hinges so I can swing out my big "Are You Experienced" backdrop,
and use it for videos and then move it out of the way for more room.
I set it up so my head is a little higher than Jimi.
A Yamaha synth with speakers that someone brought in for $10 sold for $20.
I'm going to watch a movie about the United States getting swept away by big waves,
and try to finish off my studio so I can try some videos tomorrow.
I bought a battery charger and four batteries so I can get into it big time.
The thought of trying both cameras and watching them on the computer,
has got me going in a way that recording never did.
I've got what it takes to edit them as movies, even on the TV,
but I'm thinking performance videos, back-lit so you don't see my face.
That's also being outside with a portable amp.
Wait until you see the static build-up I'm going to give that Tesla statue.

Do you use a surround-sound system with your Korg?
You might be able to focus the ambient sound on you better than an acoustic piano.

We're definetely going through some rough times. I hope this is just temporary and after this situation something good comes out of it. We can only pray and hope.

I don't use anything other than the piano itself. I don't have too much skills for the technical part of it. I just turn it on and play. That's basically what I do with guitars aswell. I'd plug it into my portable Marshall and that's about it.

You seem to have a high knowledge about configurations and stuff. I could use some of that because I've never paid too much attention for that part.

Looking foward to see those videos you mentioned. Sounds promising, John.

alcaponedudu! I woke up this morning and I grabbed myself some Strat, and played that.
I came up with a new chord progression for a song, really getting into it.
It's funny how it can be difficult to find a chord, spending half an hour.
You know the open C chord, and the minor version. I can easily play those as six-string barre chords.
I'm playing G6 that way, but I'm using the D bass note on the E string.
When I play Am with the C chord formation, I use the E bass note on the E string.
That's so easy to do with the bass strings on the bottom.
You could compare it to "Get Lucky" and "Happy" as far as rhythm goes.
Those songs have a modern r'n'b thing happening by using an open G chord formation as a barre chord.
If you can imagine using an open G chord without the G on the E string, that's what they're doing.
If can remember, that's Nile Rogers, coming out first in "Chic" as a chart-buster.

You can see I'm hot to trot already today.

Now, if there's one thing you can do for yourself to sound twice as nice,
it's being stereo. Everything you listen to now is stereo at the very least,
so why are you still playing mono?
Yes, it means having to double up some equipment, but it's worth it.
Even in the seventies, I wanted bass and guitar speakers on both sides of the drummer.
People in the audience weren't hearing all the band members if you were just on your side of the stage.
Some drummers insisted on having a bass cabinet beside them, saying at least they could play off that.
It got crazy after a while, miking everything, having a stage monitor on both sides,
and then having individual stage monitors, side washes, some bands plugging into mixers without amplifiers,
where it sounded like you were listening to yourself through a transistor radio.
I'm saying surround-sound for you because an electric keyboard could use TV screen technology.
If you were aiming the sound from the four corners of the room at you, it would feel great.
When Jimi Hendrix used speakers in the four corners of the arena, not coming from onstage,
he called where he stood "the axis of sound". That's the real meaning of "Axis: Bold as Love".

You're almost right about me having, not a high knowledge, but a very wide experience with electronics.
And you know where that comes from? Being friends with roadies.
With the custom and self-made equipment I had, I always wanted to move it and set it up myself.
Roadies were surprised I wanted to do that work, and when I played guitar for sound-checks that impressed them.
That's when I'd get into how they were setting up and trying out settings and placements.

If there's one thing I do to help with my guitar playing, it's using what I call a sweetner echo.
That's a mild echo that's always on. It adds sustain, meaning I don't have to press the strings down all the way,
when I play fast, or, if I'm using heavy effects, I'm not blurring the notes if I'm using a lighter touch.
I hope the symphony players here don't see this.
You might think a sweetner echo is a mild thing, but I paid $545 in the early nineties to buy the one I use.
It's a Roland-Boss micro-digital half-rack effect. It does other things, but that's all I use it for.
I keep it insulated with foam protection inside a compartment in my amp.

Hey! I've got some of this stuff out, getting my studio set up.
I'll take some photos later on today.
Playing guitar again, yeah... I feel like I'm back as a human being.
I'm not bragging about my guitar playing when it comes to making videos.
That's as much about making the video, the lighting, the backdrops, and coming off as Mr.E.
And if you want to think that stands for Mr. Electric Ladyland, please, I'm yours.
I still don't want anyone to be able to recognize my face.

alcaponedudu! I just thought of a new word, what could be a band name,
especially if you were playing music with words about social change.
Earitant, like an irritant you like listening to.

Here's a photo of the construction space the landlord used when he fixed up apartments.
Now that he finished the last one, he let me make my studio.

When I plugged in the red Strat to make a video,
the volume was cutting in and out. I was hitting the cord input too hard.
When I first played a Stratocaster upside-down, I used an L-shaped jack,
so it wasn't in the way so much. Now I decided to go all the way and carve a new one.
I could have used power tools, but I did it by hand, taking over three hours.
That's helping to fix my mind about taking my time when I work on the semi-solid-bodies.
I want to make them the best looking guitars I've ever built, and I can't rush the artwork.
I also can't make any mistakes because the wood and parts are all I have,
and all I've been able to come up with for over ten years.

I'm going to make a new pick-guard for the red Strat,
using a humbucker by the neck with middle and bridge single coils.
There will only be one volume control with a three-way toggle switch.
Hear me, Eduardo, this is getting to be very exciting for me,
and wanting to do something because it excites me has taken too long.
For the first time, I see both semi-solid-bodies finished in my mind.
Now I can turn that into my new musical reality.